Careful, don't sleep, you have a toddler...

I'll freely admit, I would openly laugh when I would hear stories of people's children decorating with their own feces and wonder privately, "How did they get THAT one past you?..." Oh, how karma is cruel...

Our daughter is quite fond of waking us up sometime roughly between 1am and 4am. She keeps us up just long enough that our sleep is disturbed, we have to fight to get her back to sleep, one of us is displaced from the bed either because we have to stay in hers or she climbs in, and all of us wake up cranky because we haven't had a solid five hours of sleep in almost 3 years (she's almost two and pregnancy enhanced my insomnia). She's normally fully dressed with 30 minutes of us acquiescing to her demands which means that the entire household is up by 5am.

We are not morning people. Having a child does not bestow upon you the superhuman zen-like patience of Dali Lama. We are still not morning people.

So after a heinous 5 day stretch of us not sleeping comfortably or for more than 4 hours at a time or  sharing a bed as a couple or making use of a bed... we were exhausted. Fighting over whose turn  it was to be tortured ensued and we ended up taking turns sleeping in her room or on the couch just so we could get some rest. It was early on a Sunday when I hit my breaking point. I grabbed a pillow, a blanket, and the couch in hopes of sleeping. Our lovely daughter was hemmed in by baby gates and doors so that she only had access to her room and the living room where I was sleeping. This assuaged my anxiety enough that I felt safe to sleep on the couch while she watched cartoons.
The first sign of something being dreadfully wrong was the smell that entered my nose upon waking only to be followed by the second sign, my daughter sitting next to my head on the couch - naked. The sight of her minus pj's and diaper put me in red alert. I sprang from the couch to see what was the matter. A smug of poo on the blanket?!....Oh no...A smug of poo on the brand new couch too?!...Oh fuck...The smell of poo from my HAND?! What the FUCK?!

I grabbed her up and made a mad dash to the bathroom to clean her up. On went the taps and in went the giggling kid into the bath. I was gambling that if she had the right combination of toys and bubbles I could hear her splashing and playing so that I knew she was safe. Anything to keep her contained and feces safely out of her grasp. She could shit-spa herself in the tub for all I cared just as long as our house was safe from her sticky toddler clutches.

First I checked my slippers - safe. Then I stripped, poop on my head and shirt, great. Easily cleaned and solved. On went the bathrobe as I armed myself with a bucket, rags, cleaner, and courage. The living room awaited me. The couch wasn't as bad as I imagined and was quickly clean. The blanket and pillow went straight into the wash but I could still smell poo...

Our new rug. The rug that I felt was the steal of the century. Silkily spun wool, low pile, beautiful pattern, found at a fraction of the price, difficult to replace on our budget...Oh god. The pattern and colors were the perfect camouflage for her butt soufflé. I spent the next hour on my hands and knees scrubbing out my daughter's shit from the rug. She made a figure eight on the rug to wipe the poo out of her crack and from her diaper that she had conveniently placed on her bed. A trail of poo lead me back to the source which was sitting next to her prized doll and bear. She was proud of her work.

All the while she had been happily, and loudly, playing in the bath reciting, "No-no, No-haaa - no!" Followed by laughter and an interjection of "mama, said" in her jabbering. The house now smelled of lavender, floor cleaner, wood polish, and baby wipes...it sill reeked when I went into the bathroom. I knelt down to check on Nora and asked her how she was doing. She looked up with bubbles on her face and smiled to show poop in her mouth.

January 9th - Almost 22months

To say that our daughter is an old soul is an understatement at best and an insulting minimization of her prowess at the worst. She has better table manners than most adults I know, has a better sense of fashion than my most envied of friends or heroines, the most dramatic of sensitivities, and an unwaveringly delicate touch when affectionate. My heart broke for her the first time she pulled my face down to her so she could kiss me when she was 7 months old. It breaks every time since for her and reminds me how much love can endure and heal.

She likes to march in place, she farts when she laughs, likes to strip naked and run around the house while rubbing her nipples, loves her big girl (twin sized) bed, feeds her baby dolls and gives them kisses, loves our cats and is very gentle with them, and is adept at taking things apart.

Unfortunately, she bites the couch when she's frustrated and smacks herself on the stomach and face when she's angry. Pulls and shakes the bars on the baby gates when she's not allowed in a certain room or not getting your attention right away. And says "no" to anything and everything when she's tired, hungry, or her feelings are hurt (reminds me of a certain someone that also exhausts me...).

She loves to draw and paint, loves to quietly sit in bed and read, delights in nature walks down to see our neighbor's chickens, thinks all animals with four legs are "dogs", twirls and dances (does the cha-cha, the stride, and disco moves including the hip bump) while watching her favorite movie as of late, Pitch Perfect.

We do "spa time" to get her to sit still for getting her nails trimmed and cleaned. I give her a little dab of lotion and she rubs her hands together and sniffs them just before exclaiming in appreciation "Aaaah!" She sits on my lap in front of our bedroom mirror and brushes her hair or mine. Next come the hairbands that she likes to stack up around her eyes so that she looks like a Star Trek character.

 

 She loves being chased, she no longer runs off when we're out walking together unless she's very excited, and she wants to do the stairs on her own now along with everything else. Our patience is tried every day and we fall into bed sleep deprived and are woken halfway through the night for our daughter's slumber party jabbering between our two heads and wonder if we're ever going to have a full night's sleep again next to each other or possibly ever travel again or be able to watch an R-rated movie or sleep in till noon...When all is said and done, we love her more every day and can't imagine how we were blessed with such a person.